Grandine
The Grandine General Council (GGC) is the planetary government of the planet Grandine. It is an Earth-like planet whose native species (also called ‘Grandine’) evolved parallel to humanity on Earth, so while they functionally and physiologically human, they are an example of the impossible probability of a planet evolving a ‘human-identical’ species parallel to Earth’s own a prime example of Dr. Levant’s Law of Parallel Planetary Development (which in itself is a fictional law from popular science-fiction series Wormhole X-Treme!). Despite a brief period of initial hostility with the SEF the Grandine have been strong allies to Earth and are amongst the founding members of the Alliance. Population Centres Grandine civilisation began in a series of city-states dotted across the primary Pangea-esque Super-continent on their world, since unification around nine hundred years ago these city-states have been the main polities of the Grandine states and have expanded into massively sprawling metropolis equal to the greatest cities on Earth, where immense sky-scrapers are dotted with sky-lanes laced by VTOL personal transports and fusion-powered cars. Most of the population live in the cities, with a number of outlying rural communities being on the decline with much of the super-continents wild spaces being given over to farming and other resource operations. Government The Grandine General Council is the central unifying government of their world, it is comprised of representatives of the three castes in Grandine society, the ‘Miltiary’ ‘Administrative’ and ‘Worker’ castes work in equal cooperation, councillors are elected from the general population by means of popular vote amongst their caste and leadership of the council rotates between each of the Castes every five years. The Military Caste has held this tenure since 2014 with the council led by Admiral Glen Ross but as of 2019 Admiral Ross’ time as leader as expired and the Grandine are preparing to transfer leadership of the Council to another caste. The GGC is a representative democracy with caste members elected from each polity by popular vote, each representative is expected to represent both their caste and the needs of their electorate in the polity that elected them. Beliefs Grandine culture does not natively encourage religion. There aren’t any old religions on the planet, they’ve never been a religious people. But as they’ve explored the galaxy, there have been Grandine who would follow other religions that they’ve found. These people are incredibly rare as they are not a people natively accepting of superstition and no structures of organised religion are in place or supported by the GGC in a way like they are on Earth. Professions and Social Castes The Grandine are heavily divided along caste lines, the ‘Military’ caste handles every aspect of defence and security on the planet, including policing, the ‘Administrative’ caste the day to day running and governance of all life across their world, and the ‘Worker’ caste the labour-intensive roles. As a people Grandine are hard-working and hierarchical a higher quality of life is a reward for hard work towards the greater benefit of their people. The Grandine work a long week with a single day of rest and have an industrious work ethic – this is universal culturally and social movement within ones caste is based on achieving targets with access to roles within Grandine culture based on an individuals work record. Writing/Art There are no ‘professional’ artists on Grandine, creative writing and art are a ‘hobby’ like most forms of art and anyone pursuing a life focused entirely on producing them would be quite unusual. Though they certainly do exist there isn’t a true celebrity culture on Grandine, most actors in their entertainment do that in addition to the work expected of their Caste. Self-publishing tends to be common across Grandine thanks to the extensive communication networks and artworks are flashed across the Network into the implants and datapads of anyone who wishes to access them with some particularly prolific artists making a small additional profit in their yearly earnings from their ‘hobby’. Architecture Grandine have a passion for functionality over design, most Grandine architecture serves it’s purpose, usually structures of glass and metal that are designed for purpose rather than for any sort of artistic merit. Though there are those who apply an artistic flair to their designs the Grandine population is generally not welcoming to architecture that frustrates the purpose of a building in the first place. Dating and Holidays A Grandine year is around 400 days on their axis. Grandine holidays, which are analogous to the seasonal changes, occur every 100 days. Their four main holidays are equally distant from each other – what were once probably practical celebrations to adjust to seasonal changes have, much like religious holidays have largely become in the western world, become simple excuses for celebration. These are Winterfest, Mid-Summers Festival (The two biggest holidays celebrating the middle of winter and the middle of summer). The other two which are Dawnsbreak and Duskbreak are respectively the Spring and Autumn equinox points – and these would be the equivalent of long weekend bank holidays in Britain and the Galadeen don’t do much on them. In addition to these festivals the Grandine celebrate Unification Day, though the date of this changes consistently due to axial rotation and is 35 days later every year. Warfare The Grandine have long-maintained a standing military pact with the Greater German Reich (GGR) with the German colonists providing ground forces while the Grandine provide aerial, orbital and fleet support. This alliance has served the Grandine well but does mean their fighting forces tend towards security and fleet protection roles as well as ship-to-ship boarding actions. Grandine marines are highly skilled, but Grandine lacks effective ground forces without the support of the GGR. The Grandine Navy has hundreds of vessels available to it from all manner of shapes and sizes and roles in battle, it individually has challenged and won against the fleets of the Goa’uld in the past. Most ships are named after animals. Personalities Grandine have a strong love of the arts and crafts, as people work very very hard… but they also play very very hard. Every Grandine Character should have a ‘hobby’ and it is encouraged to pursue them, even in the military. The Grandine love the arts as much as they love work. Entertainment is the equivalent of slightly more advanced than Earth normal (example: 4K TV would be the equivalent of what we would think of an SD Television.. it’s not super advanced, but slightly) – they watch movies, theatre, concerts and there is a large arts scene. The Grandine have none of the cultural issues that Earth has regarding discrimination against gender or sexuality, all couplings (or polygamous arrangements) are treated equally within GGC culture and this has been the case for hundreds of years. The issues Earth cultures have with misogyny, patriarchy and rape culture simply don’t exist on Grandine, and would be reacted to with considerable hostility by people there. Appearance Grandine look and appear to be humans, they have minuscule variations in their DNA that expose them to be non-human but they are our close parallel relatives. To this end, from across their continent the Grandine display similar racial characteristics to humanity. ---- Technology *'Spacefaring:' The Grandine have extensive fleet assets and shipyards, though these have been diminished over the course of several galactic wars they have the most advanced warships in the Alliance fleet and their capacity to build additional vessels in immense ensuring they are the largest space-based power in the Alliance. *'Colonisers:' The Grandine have no planetary colonies and only a few off-world settlements on space stations and their moon. In late 2016 the Grandine began a long-term colony project to create a standing colony away from the Grandine solar system to ensure an established colony should an incident similar to the invasion of Earth threaten their survival as a species. It is unknown as of 2019 if this has borne fruit. *'Explorers:' The Grandine are prolific explorers of the Galaxy, they have a number of orbital space stations above their home world and the other worlds in their immediate star-system some of which are residential and inhabited including extensive facilities on their moon. Beyond their immediate solar system the Grandine have not got extensive assets with mainly listening posts and other outposts for extracting resources and conducting scientific study. This is largely due to encounters with the Goa’uld Empire during their initial explorations of the Galaxy and not wishing to make targets of themselves. The Grandine do have an active and functional Stargate but do not make it the focus of their interplanetary explorations, they culturally prefer to use spacecraft. Technology comparison *'Construction Technology:' Thanks to their access of reliable VTOL technology and extensive shipyards and other facilities of mass production the Grandine are significantly superior to Earth in terms of their construction technologies, able to assemble buildings that take years on earth in months thanks to easy transport of goods and placement of frameworks via vtol. *'Manufacturing Technology:' The Grandine manufacturing technology is still like its Earth equivalent, their production lines are almost entirely automated though 3D printing technology is a relatively new idea to them – they are capable of mass manufacture similar in scale to that on Earth though their fusion-powered technology means they have significantly less environmental impact. *'Biological Technology:' Medical technologies on Grandine lag behind their earth-equivalent, a number of remedies and medicines that developed from things encountered in Earth’s ecosystem simply don’t exist in the Grandine ecosystem and so they had made less of the breakthroughs Earth had made when first contact was established with them. They have benefitted massively from trade with Earth in this regard and several commonly curable ailments on Earth that were still dangers on Grandine have been eliminated as a result. *'Transportation Technology:' Grandine transport technologies are hundreds of years more advanced than Earth-equivalent technologies. Extensive use of fusion power and safe reliable personal VTOL craft provides incredibly advanced and swift land-based transport. Grandine spacecraft are incredibly advance with extensive energy weaponry and hyperspace engines. *'Communication Technology:' Grandine communications technology is highly advanced, their technology makes use of subspace penetration techniques to allow crystal-clear communications to be sent across vast distances in seconds with little to no degradation. Most Grandine possess implanted communications devices capable of broadcasting audio, voice and visual transmissions as well as data directly to the neural pathways of the recipient. *'Energy Technology:' Grandine technology relies heavily on Nuclear fusion, Grandine power generators are effective proven examples that the technology that Earth struggled to crack for years is viable. Vast fusion stations provide planetary power while similar power plants provide their vessels with incredible reserves to power their vital systems and energy weaponry. ---- History Life on Grandine has, thanks to comparative dating, been around a similar length of time to that on Earth – this points to a galactic-scale event that sparked life simultaneously on both worlds, but such suppositions have yet to be proven. When the Grandine emerged as the dominant species of their home world so did several clear and recognisable animal species from Earth, wolves, cats and many other creatures came into being, though there are many subspecies adapted to the unique supercontinental landmass that dominates Grandine not found on Earth. Initial civilization on Grandine formed around several powerful city-states, but this period is poorly recorded as it is effectively ancient history to the Grandine people, roughly nine hundred years ago (Earth-standard) the Grandine made a decision to unite for the mutual benefit of their people forming the Grandine General Council and arranging themselves into the Caste system they maintain to this very day. Grandine has a Stargate but no historical legends associated with the Goa’uld or indeed mention of the Gate itself, how the Grandine gate came to be on their world, and to be buried beneath its surface in the first place is so-far unanswered. Since uniting the Grandine have advanced along a static path, weaponry and warfare were largely stagnant for scientific development as they had no specific threats to force them to develop more complicated weapons – they dedicated themselves providing to their practical needs and to their curiosity, with the formation of a space program nearly a century before Earth. Around fourty years prior to contact with Earth-based forces, the Grandine successfully developed their first native-built hyperspace drive, and began interplanetary exploration leading to their first encounters with the Goa’uld – this precipitated the rapid evolution of the Grandine Navy and the evolution of the, until-then security focused, warrior caste of their society to a more formal military. Sometime during this period, the Grandine contacted the Greater German Reich and formed a military pact with the German colonists largely in the face of renewed aggression from the Goa’uld towards the GGR capitol of Himmel and the Grandine system. Though the planet is largely peaceful, there have been historical terrorist insurgencies largely based upon separatist lines, in recent years this has come from Grandine citizens who live on the orbital stations or the Grandine moon who have sought to divide themselves from the control of the GGC. Recent History First contact between Earth and the GGC occurred in June 2007 when the UK Gate was still controlled by the SEF’s predecessor, the United Kingdom Gate Command (UKGC). At that time the Grandine Stargate had been located and uncovered by an archaeological team – the intial dial-in to Grandine resulted in the death of a Grandine television presenter who had been in front of the gate at the time of its activation. Though the UKGC team attempted to liberate the footage of the incident from the Grandine TV crew present, their rough actions were taken as an act of war by the Grandine. The next contact between Earth and the GGC was when the GGC opened a gate to a UKGC base camp and started firing tank shells through. Though more of a short skirmish due the Earth-Grandine ‘war’ lasted 3-6 months before the issue of the misunderstanding was put to rest and good relations were established. Since the end of the conflict, the Grandine have been one of Earths and the SEFs as the UKGCs successor, closest allies. During the Dagon Crisis, the GGC were amongst the first factions in the Galaxy to respond to the threat after the Aethernaut Invasion of Earth supplying a battleship, the Grey Wolf, to the SEF for their use as they hunted for the components of the Giant’s Causeway Superweapon. Though the Grey Wolf was sadly lost with all hands over Colchis in October 2013 the GGC continued to support the SEF, becoming amongst the first signatories and members of the Alliance in January 2014 and supplying ships and personnel to the effort to retake Earth. The Grandine have enjoyed good relations with most of the Alliance, however tensions between them and the Galadeen have been high since the Galadeen, not appreciating the issue with doing so, replicated many Grandine ships they were loaned for the defence of their homeworld using their technologies, precipitating a diplomatic crisis. Along with the SEF the GGC have been a primary driver in the efforts to assemble an Alliance Joint Task Force (JTF) as a standing military available to all members of the Alliance – unfortunately with the aftermath of the Dagon Crisis with ongoing conflicts with both the Sylvalis and the remnant Servitors of the Great Old Ones the project has been largely derailed by extensive damage to the Grandine fleet. The Grandine were the first to suffer the machinations of the Kuma-ai when they mounted a terrorist attack upon their system that damaged several Grandine Naval vessels and destroyed their flagship. The subsequent Kuma-ai War led to extensive damage to the Grandine flee from Kuma-ai suborned Galadeen vessels – damage from which they are still rebuilding forcing them to look further to focusing their protection upon their own system rather than the Alliance at large. Also, during the Kuma-ai War, a noteable GGC Admiral was killed in mysterious circumstances. ---- Back to Cultural Database Back to The Alliance Category:Cultures Category:The Alliance